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Ambition is necessary, which is the key to all success. The 

 same energy that changed the undeveloped home of the savage 

 into this grand christian Nation, that we claim as our own, is 

 what can make farming pay, and in this country there are no 

 obstacles to its free use. 



SHEEP. 



I would refer to sheep as an undoubted means of renovating 

 worn-out, and now almost unused, pastures where 

 bushes, briars and moss are on the increase and where the 

 nutritious grasses have been suppressed by such useless 

 growths. Many of our pastures possess a broken and rocky 

 surface where the plough cannot be used, and where no imple- 

 ment can well serve to better it. In the sheep we have the 

 means of keeping down the bushes, briars and moss and in- 

 creasing and fertilizing the nutritious grasses on such rough 

 and rocky land. 



Sheep cannot be expected to feed on old bushes or old briars, 

 but all such should be mowed down at the start ; nor can they 

 be expected to thrive in, or fully benefit, on old run-down 

 pasture, without receiving some good feed from their owner 

 each day. Our late Sec'y of Agriculture says in regard to 

 keeping sheep " that it was necessary to give them something to 

 keep them quiet and contented, or they would be jumping over 

 the stone wall. So I bought a lot of cotton seed meal, paying 

 thirty-five or forty dollars a ton ; and I fed those sheep every 

 day, morning and night, with cotton-seed-meal. They liked 

 it first-rate, and it agreed with them uncommonly well. I do 

 not remember the exact quantity, but perhaps a pint for each 

 sheep at each feeding. " " The result was, they cleaned out 

 absolutely every briar, and every sumac-bush, and many other 



